


Impasse

by Vanaria Publishing Co (Vanaria_Publishing_Co)



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-12 15:31:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16875453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vanaria_Publishing_Co/pseuds/Vanaria%20Publishing%20Co
Summary: Reno and Rude get brought to the world of Hydaelyn after a car bombing, hauled there by the Goddess herself to change things that must be changed for the salvation of the world. Will they succeed, or will the clone of Sephiroth that tried to kill them succeed in doing so before they can?





	1. Chapter One

_Hear. . .feel. . .think._ The words echoed in the mind of the Turk, the voice warm. . .feminine. Reno was floating in it seemed in a sea of pitch black, tiny pinpricks like stars all around him. There was no pain now, nothing but peace and love and something else. . .something intangible that he had no explanation for. 

_I’m alive. . .how am I alive?_ The question hung in his heart. After that explosion, he should by rights have been scattered in chunks of flesh across the sidewalks outside of the Seventh Heaven, not floating here in front of a giant crystal that he could feel was a being of immense power and presence. 

 

“Precious children.” the voice was aloud now. “I brought thee both here to save thee. Thee both have more yet that thou must do, more life yet to live. “ 

Reno was about to question just what she meant before he floated away from her, only for feeling and sight to return, bit by bit the warmth of sunlit ground entered his senses, the canopy of tall trees filling his vision, the sound of animals moving along the forest floor echoing in his ears. 

The first thing he noticed as consciousness returned to him entirely was that the sounds came not from the sides of his head, but from the top, and he felt something twitch against his leg, causing him to reach down to see what it was. “Tail?” he muttered. “I don’t have a tail. The fuck is going on?” 

Another realization caused him to sit bolt upright, a spike of terror sluicing down his spine like ice cold water. _Rude!_ His throat was locked from the emotion for a moment before he screamed the name, hoping by every God he could imagine that his lover, his soulmate, the only one that he had ever trusted enough to fully open his heart to, had not been left behind. 

 

Rude had no idea what was coming, and what had already been made manifest.

With a shocking jolt, he sat bolt upright, and looked around with blurry, bleary eyes, feeling somehow - off. But there was no pain -- so what the -- Reno! Where was --- “Hey ….Hey!! Reno?? Reno? Do you hear me? RENO … answer me Goddamn it! RENO. “ Focus, focus! Was that ---- he got to his feet -- was he - taller?! Or maybe just deader? Explosion. Blast. One fucking gigantic blast, that’s pretty much all there was to it. Dead-time. Was this -- Afterlife then? Rude coughed, and this time, honestly bellowed for his flame haired lover. Wait. There. Make it over there --- come on.

Come. Come on. Weak. For whatever reason, the Lifestream apparently made you weak as a Chocobo hatchling, and Rude tottered hard. “Reno, what the -- “ Rude’s features changed. His nose wrinkled up now in horror, and he hissed out seething air. Ok, Nightmare ? All of this, a nightmare then? The brat. The shit kicking little snotnose had made good on his threat, and when Rude got his hands on Kadaj, the boy was going to be sorry. By Minerva, he would learn some respect. Rude hadn’t wanted to shoot the three, but they were sure as fuck pushing things now. Rude found his own morals and rules were slipping badly away. “Reno? Tell me if this is real? Please? Because I need to know. Right now …

 

When Rude approached, the first thing the slender male did was pull the larger man’s face down, lips locking onto his as that almost desperate terror still seared through him, having to prove both to himself and to his lover that they were alive, that this was real. “I got no idea where in the ever living blueberry flavored fuck we are, but yeah, this is real. We’re alive, an’ I got no idea who had the idea to gimme cat ears an’ a fuckin’ tail, but right now I don’t give a flyin’ fuck. I’m just glad we ain’t dead, I’ll figure out the rest of it later.” 

 

The memory of the giant crystal had begun to fade, and seemed to him now like the remnants of a fucked up fever dream that was the result of a night of too many hallucinogens. He knew what that was like and it wasn’t a pleasant thing to think about. His own lips pressed together in displeasure as he recalled the laughter he’d heard outside, ears pressing down flat against his skull as rage filled him. “If I ever get back home I’m gonna _kill_ that snotty little asshole.” he growled out, before looking around, scanning for any sign of civilization whatsoever, to make a sound of satisfaction at what looked like a village in the distance. “Over there! That looks like a town, yo, an’ that means people. Maybe we can find out where the fuck we are and go from there.” 

 

He was also smart enough to know how Rude was likely to react to the changes in his own physical form, but at the moment he was so focused on survival he shoved it out of his mind. Making sure the both of them stayed living was utmost in his brain at that moment and the reactions from his lover were something that would need to be dealt with when they weren’t out in the middle of a forest with no weapons but their hands and feet and wild animals, some of them likely carnivorous, on every side of them. 

_Gotta focus right now,_ he said to himself _dealin’ with the inevitable fall out of this whole fucked situation is gonna have to be later._

 

Rude ...relaxed.

Well, not really.

The kiss ...helped. But there was really no way he felt like pretending everything was back to normal, with Reno looking like a .. a … well .. more like a big overgrown and arguably prettier Cait Sith. 

“I give a fuck, but I do agree we need to get out of here and soon. Tell me what you remember, Reno? All I remember is us having lunch, me getting a call from the little silver haired bastard telling me that things were about to really ‘take off’. Then - you and I checked stuff out. Other stuff. More stuff. Then I -- something - and KA- Booom!” Rude ran a hand over his head and grimaced - “I don’t ….feel right. Do I look right, even?! Don’t say I do if I don’t?” What would Reno think if Rude said another kiss with him looking that way (an animal fucks sake he’s become a freaking animal of some kind!) would certainly at the least make him extremely uneasy ( _appalledsickenedgodnonothatcannothappen_ ) - “Why are you a cat?”

Rude drew back, his heart pounding in harsh, uncomfortable gallops. “Reno. Why. Are. You. A. Cat. What -- even happened?!”

“I don’t _know_!” he suddenly yelled out as the enormity of the situation hit him all at once. “Ok, ok, Reno, calm down.” he took a deep breath, blue green eyes swimming with tears that he buried deep until his racing thoughts had begun to calm. “Ok, last thing I remember is you turnin’ the car key, an’ the explosion, an’. .. .burning, for a few minutes.” he took another deep breath and described his experience with the giant crystal, and what the being (she had to have been a goddess, but what kind of goddess. Some weird fucked up form of Minerva? Who the hell even knew?) had said to him, before letting out a deep sigh. “I don’t know why, an’ I don’t know how it happened. But I’m still me for alla that. Oh, an’ ta answer your question, yer taller, but you still look like you. Ya look ok, even with the height difference.” 

 

He shook his head and looked up at Rude. “Look, for right now, why don’t we go to that village in th’distance? Figure out where the fuck we are, an’ we can go on from there, yeah? I’ll take it up with the damn crystal for puttin’ me in this fuckin’ body later. But she wouldn’ta brought us here if she’s a goddess like she felt like she was if she didn’t have some kinda reason for it aside from thoroughly fuckin’ up my love life. Ta be honest, she felt kinda like Minerva, an’ I got enough experience with that particular goddess ta know not ta argue with her.” 

 

He paced for a moment, before muttering “I am gonna beat the little fucker bloody, then I’m gonna kill him. Crazy bastard.” before walking toward the town, hoping that Rude would follow him, sighing in relief when he saw that Rude was.


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

 

Rude stopped, as they held steady on the very outskirts.

He’d been entertaining some very un-Rude like fantasies of beating the living shit out of the young teenage remnant of Sephiroth, who was clearly not only insane but - well - young. He was a little monster, for sure, and a murderer, but he hadn’t asked to come into existence. And now that he had, Rude supposed he was pretty close to an actual sentient being, he and the other two. Which did nothing to erase his malignant intentions and cruel heart. Actual insanity seemed a certainty. Which left Rude questioning how to handle things ...back home, it was for Rufus to softly purr the orders to ‘terminate’ the three, and for Reno and Rude to carry that out. Now, Rude had time and space to contemplate, and it wasn’t making things better. Kadaj was a kid. Was there any way to save his life? What of the other two? Rude still wasn’t sure about the one with the long hair and drop dead gorgeous model looks. Was he - ? - male or - what? A little from column A and … ?

The big brute who seemed to be the muscle of them called for no such analyzing.

On one of their espionage missions to watch them, he’d grabbed the silken one by the waist and pulled them close for a kiss that set Rude’s trousers afire. Rude was no cheat, but there was some _heat_ between those two.

Rude sighed. He’d indulged for a while now in all this veddy heavy thought. But - there was no escaping what had happened to Reno. Rude had to do better. He couldn’t make him feel .. unwanted. Shunned. He bit back the surging revulsion that ( _thiswasawalkinganimal_ ) the ears and tail gave him, and viciously reminded himself that this was the love of his life, and a victim.

“Reno?”

The redhead turned, looking up (God Rude was so much taller than him now, it was like looking up at a giant.) with a tremulous smile. He was going to adjust to the changes, and they would do what they had to do and hopefully whoever the goddess that had brought them here was would see fit to send them home, and in their own bodies thankyouverymuch.

“Yeah, partner?” His voice grew stronger as he stood to his full height, which due to the changes wasn’t the 5’11” he had been used to, but closer to 5’5” at the most. Another strange thing to get used to, being short. As he reached up to brush the crimson spikes out of his face ( _God dammit I hate not having my goggles_ ) it would be noticed how much more fluid the motions were. 

But for that moment, something seemed to settle between the two of them, the odd tension beginning to dissipate, and that suited him just fine.

“I love you.”

It needed to be said.

Reno was far from stupid. “No matter what, I do see the real you in there. I do, it’s -- look, I just know, and I won’t forget, ok?”

He was about to make a long winded speech when a sound from behind him made Rude start, and he turned, suddenly really getting how huge he had become, and also suddenly realizing that he kind of liked it, because it meant he could protect his partner in life and love, a fuck of a lot better now. Someone was coming out of the shadows, and he tensed, nudging Reno. “What now.” What now, indeed. But the man who walked out slowly, hands up, and that - right, yes, that was the sword showing behind his back - _Cloud_ \- it was Cloud. He was tired, and bloodied, and his face was drawn. He walked to the two Turks in fast, long strides. He had no time to waste on small talk or half assed threats. This was down to the wire, they were on the edge of everything. A long, shallow gash ran down his handsome, pale face. Rude was stunned he hadn’t seen that till the man was right in front of them. It was .. it was going to be a game changer for his looks.

“The silver hairs are here.”

Not wasting words, he explained how he and the three had been engaged in verbal threats when the blast had come. He’d caught Loz and Yazu setting the explosive, and had demanded they remove it. Words soon led to altercations and then the world had just gone away. Cloud vaguely remembered a fog kissed meeting with a great lady ( Goddess?) and then he had awakened in a forest. Instinct or intuition had led him to follow the Turks, and that was when the three had appeared, out of nowhere.

_Here._

The wound was from here, not Gaia.

He took a breath, and looked at the two. As if he did not want to be discourteous and mention - the changes.

“Where …………………..are we? Is this .. something to do with the Lifestream? An Afterlife area?”

Rude coughed.

“Good question. Got no answers. Cloud, you’re bleeding.”

 

_Look over at me, asshole._

So here we go, Rude thought nastily. _Even with him a fucking upright cat, you can’t get it out of your system._

Reno as if by instinct ,almost, reached for his bracer that had his materia on it and cast a Cure, stopping the bleeding to the cut on Cloud’s face. “We were gonna head to that village over there, see if we could get some. I got about as much idea of what the fuck’s goin’ on as you do.” 

No, the old feelings had not been forgotten, but he would never think of cheating on Rude in any way, shape, or form, not even a heart cheating. They’d gone that road before, and he wouldn’t do that to the man who had done so much for him ever again. But that didn’t mean he didn’t care about the blond as a friend, nor did it mean he was going to just let the man keep bleeding when they had bigger shit on their plate than old rivalries that had never died.

“But if those assholes are here, we got bigger problems on our plate than just the fact that we’re stuck in a place we got no idea what it is.” and he threw a burning, passionate, loving look at Rude, telling the other man quite clearly that the message had been heard and received, and that he returned the feelings just as deeply, old lovers and rivals for the red haired man’s affections present or not. 

 

Long, agile strides began to carry him the rest of the way toward the village, hand reaching for Rude’s looking for the reassurance that he didn’t want to admit he quite desperately needed right in that moment. 

Rude did not return the look.

He did not even see Reno’s expression, because without looking directly down at Reno, who was, after all, so damned little now, Rude really couldn’t see. And Cloud was there, walking but of course right next to Reno, much closer to his size (much closer to normal, the prick) -- Rude felt Reno’s hand, and he accepted it, squeezed it. Hate was too strong a word ( _noitwasn’t_ ) but Cloud and Rude did not get along, to put it in gentle terms. 

As they entered the village, there was a thunderous sound of hoofbeats, and clearly, the quiet hamlet was about to receive more lavish company than the trio walking into town: 

Lord Haurchefant Greystone rode into the town from the other side, and he was accompanied by a very small assemblage. His expression was grave. There had been a massacre, within the past half hour, and he had witnessed it personally -- and it had left an impression: The young man who had led it had sported gleaming silver tresses so very similar to his own, and a fair face. But his eyes were green as a new hewn emerald, and more alluring yet. With blade and unknown weapons, he and two others had slaughtered a large gathering of peaceful traders, most of them very elderly and of various races. He had rode hard towards them, but the three evildoers had easily escaped. Finally giving up the chase but haunted by what he’d just seen, Haurchefant looked like a man in a trance.

The words the young killer had shouted at him as he fled would never leave his mind.

_“This is just the beginning!”_

And so …

Lord Greystone very much feared it was exactly that.

 

A young man with the same cat like ears and tail that Reno himself sported, and hair a shade or two more of an orange red than his own, had ridden in next to his lover, looking just as shellshocked. Even as powerful as the Warrior of Light was, he had been batted aside like a fly, and nearly run through by the smallest of the three besides. It had only been Haurchefant’s swift hand on his arm yanking him aside that had saved him a world of pain. Remial’s ears pressed flat against his skull, tail hanging listlessly. He felt as haunted as the Elezen looked, and it took a moment or two to realize that they had crossed the border out of Coerthas and into the warm forestlands of Gridania. Not that it helped remove the chill from his bones. 

 

The sounds of the screams of the Ul’dahn traders still rang in his head, and he couldn’t shake the horrid feeling he got from it. His hand flew to his head, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, as the Echo, that strange, otherworldly power that so few understood, seized hold of him, showing him a scene from another’s past. 

 

//The bald man and the redhead stood next to each other, panting, the red haired man’s face bloodied, their surroundings urban, but wrecked, concrete and twisted metal laying all around them, as they watched and waited for the three silver hairs to make another move. 

The fighting began again, the two getting knocked aside, as the one with longer hair bent over the redhead saying mockingly “are we having fun yet?” 

“Time of my fucking _life_!” the redheaded male snarled back as he clashed with the silver haired one once more.//

 

At the same time, Reno winced, images unreeling in his head as if his own memories, a headache like that as being from one too many drinks pounding behind his eyelids. 

 

//The snowbound fortress had become bedlam, screams resounding as a group of small bodies was flung aside, blood flying and spattering onto the ground, painting the gray stone walls of the keep a lurid crimson. In the middle of the carnage stood a young man, lean of frame and compact of body, a double bladed sword gripped in one hand, a mad expression on the almost angelic face in which eyes that burned with madness were set. 

 

Behind him, flames flickered, licking up onto one of the buildings, extinguished swiftly by the falling snow, but that didn’t save the people who ran from it. As quickly as the knights fled the structure, they too fell, carmine blossoms appearing on their torsos, not even the chainmail they wore strong enough to stand up to the large caliber rounds from the gun the tall, slender one of three wielded. //

The last sound to be heard as the vision came to an end was the thud of a cat like body on the wood of the walkway.


	3. From Hell's Heart

 

  
Yazu was in their element.   
  
‘They’ and ‘their’ were perhaps the very best term of pronouns for the being who was, essentially, extremely androgynous. Not truly gender fluidic, but a stable combination of the male and the female, masculine and feminine merged in one strikingly beautiful package. Now standing outside a hapless village not that far from the one Reno and Rude had come to, the lovely lips pursed into a sweet, wide smile, as the long arm extended, at the end the Velvet Nightmare, a weapon unlike anything they would have ever encountered before - and had no resistance to whatever. “50 caliber love letters, honey.” People fell, soldiers, civilians, the old, the young, a baby died in the arms of its young mother, a grandfather careened to the ground.   
  
Yazu did not care.   
  
Yazu had no mercy.

 

Yazu … was all beauty, all allure, all grace. No heart.

 

The long silk of hair, silver as moonlight, was tossed back. “Why don’t you braid that shit.”, Kadaj snarled to sister-brother, and watched the slaughter.  “This is fun, but I’m hungry.”  
  
“We could eat some of them?”  Why not. They weren’t the same as the three, it wasn’t cannibalism. Not that that likely would have mattered.

 

“Yeah, no. I want actual food. Hope that’s okay.”  
  
“You’re cranky, little brother.”

 

“I’m hungry, motherfuck, I just said this … come on, kill all these vermin ..”

 

Yazu smiled. Pretty little pout. “Love to. Come on Lozzybear. Let’s make a bloodbath.”

  


Lord Greystone sat in the tavern, silent. The look on his face was nothing he’d ever worn before. What he’d seen, the new level of evil, and even more than that, the sheer killing power of it. The three could destroy .. what .. everything? Oh no! No they most assuredly would not be doing anything of the kind. He looked over to Remial, and created a smile out of nothing, just for him. The young man looked sad and defeated. They needed hope. But against this … “Your thoughts, my dear one? Spare me naught, I would have as always, the truth.”

 _Crush out the memories. All of them, if you please?_ , he thought wearily. It was taking a deep seated and very heavy toll on his head and heart at this point.

 

  
Rude wished Cloud would just - to put it dully and crudely - fuck off and die.

Things already were shit, things already were a nightmare, the addition of Cloud Strife was the salting of the wound, the poison in the pie, the insult to the injury. Rude just hated every fucking word the blond prick uttered, and yet here he sat, at the other end of the same tavern, different table, but similar woes. Rude had finally allowed himself to realize and comprehend just how different he was physically now -- and it was a shocking revelation to himself, one he might have allowed to have happen long before now. But cop outs happened, didn’t they? Now, he sat next to Reno, ignoring Cloud sitting across from them and babbling his bullshit.

 

Cloud, for his part, was unfazed.  
  
He knew and understood just how Rude felt, and it wasn’t going to be a problem. Cloud didn’t worry for things like that, not when there were much, much bigger things going on than interpersonal relationships. Besides, he was suffering from internal conflicts of his own:

Kadaj was in love with him.  


His mortal enemy, in many ways a victim himself, set on a path he did not possess the Will to even begin to resist, and the boy was in love. Yet at the same time, when that dual blade was crashing down towards Cloud, Cloud noticed he did not hold back. He was willing to kill what he loved. Or most likely of all, he simply did not have the mental stability to do anything different. Not as if Cloud hadn’t attempted truces, meetings, negotiations, ‘just talking’. It always ended exactly the same, babbling inanity, that made no sense whatever. He didn’t want to hurt the kid. But that was being made inescapable … and so Cloud settled for just .. killing him humanely, Kadaj and the other two, killing them quickly like three rabid dogs that couldn’t help themselves, but would never be anything but a horrific threat - and - in fact - needed that mercy.

Needed that release.

Sephiroth had told a young rookie once, fresh faced and flush in his bed, ‘ _A man can justify anything. But only history justifies him.’._

The great general had been sane in those days, impossibly tall, powerful, beautiful. Cloud had fallen hard, his heart crippled and his senses shaken to their core. Zack had been right there, and the three of them had … Oh .. what they had had ...

So much loss.

 

It was rather extraordinary Cloud himself was not drooling in a corner, drunk on tears and self hatred.

  


Reno, after he had awoken, had been shaken, as could be told by his _silence_ , dead silent as a grave. One could always tell when something had him troubled by the fact that he didn’t run his mouth as he typically did, just sat with his drink in his hand, tossing it back, utterly still. He had been relieved to discover that this world, whatever it was, took the same currency that they used back home, minus the debit cards that they typically used, but he had had plenty of cash on him regardless, so that hadn’t been an issue. He looked over at the other two who had entered the tavern behind them, the silver hair on the one made him shudder, bad memories, but the man seemed as gobsmacked as he and Rude were.

“I bet ya wanna hear what happened.” he said quietly, and his eyes cut to his lover, ears twitching slightly. “I saw what happened with those two.” He jerked a thumb over toward Haurchefant and Remial. “It was the damndest thing, I dunno how it happened, but I saw it in my _head_ as if they were my _own fucking memories_ . The three attacked here, an’ that poor kid-” he gestured to Remial  “got swatted away like he was a _bug_ . An’ I can already tell ya, an’ I don’t know exactly how I know this, that guy ain’t _weak_. If we don’t figure out a way to stop ‘em, this world’s gonna see carnage that I ain’t sure it’s gonna be able to handle without it turnin’ into a calamity of epic proportions.”

 

Actually, he hadn’t wanted to know. What Rude wanted was to wake up and have this damned long winded nightmare over with. Wake up to good coffee and mint creamer, hotcakes with plenty of butter and way too much syrup to not be fatal. Sausages, why not? After all, it was his fantasy. But now all he did was nod, having listened, having heard, but not understood. Rude didn’t understand anything now, not anymore.

“Fuck.” Rude muttered very quietly. Well, that couldn’t be good. Now Reno was becoming more and more - what was the word ? - _ethereal_ ? “So it made you pass out?” Somehow, that was the worst part to Rude. “Why did you pass out?” It made him .. feel so out of control - and he already felt that way, but this was the finishing touch. Reno had a vision, and had fainted. Had _wilted_ . It had sent Rude’s tired heart to icy terror as he had watched him collapse. He did not want to discuss it. “I’m not a fan of this place, kiddo. We need to go home.”  


 

“We need to figure out how to handle them.” Remial said succinctly. The Miqo’te was usually a boy of few words anyway, and when he did have something to say it was always to the point. “I don’t know how yet, that’s the first time I’ve been just knocked aside that way. The first time I haven’t been able to handle whatever challenge the Mother Crystal might have to send my way. I don’t know _how_ yet, and that, as they say, is the rub.” he closed his eyes a moment, before turning to meet the brilliant blue of his love.   
  
  
“Teach me the ways of the sword later?” he asked softly. Remial had learned summoning, he’d been a mage ever since he’d begun adventuring, and he’d never mastered bladework. “I’m going to need to know how to use one if I’m to have any _hope_ of meeting them on the field of battle and winning.”

  


“Certainly.”

Haurchefant was too troubled to offer as much comfort as he normally would have. It was usually for him to know exactly what to say, and what to do as well. Make things better, sometimes make them alright. Now, he flailed in silent psychological horror, what might well have been called in another time and place, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. What he’d seen, what they’d witnessed … and there was .. something else, too. Something that just might even make all this even worse:

“The small one, my dear. He -- he’s a _child_.”

The point was twofold - how could a child warrior commit such atrocities, and just as pressing, how could they possible send steel into the body of such a young enemy? “He looks .. he’s so young, Rem. Did you not see this? How do we battle a child?”

It was, he deemed a fair question, even if it might have no fair answer.

  


A wicked grin crossed the face of the biggest of the three as he picked up a girl of about sixteen summers, taking the giant piledriver and deploying it right into her chest, enjoying the scream that got choked off as blood and tissue was pulled free of the cavity when the weapon withdrew, and then threw the corpse down onto the ground.

 

Yaz was bored, and finally sat down, lithe long body stretching out on the ground, examining the magnificent gunblade. Kadaj sat down as well. They’d completed the slaughter now, and his bodily hunger was nearly as potent and powerful as his emotional and psychological hunger for a certain someone. Big Brother. The boy couldn’t get his mind off of Cloud. Kadaj was perhaps in human terms roughly equivalent to a 16 year old. And 16 year old impulses and needs were flooding him. Therefore he made an announcement, ignoring the looks from the other two. After all, he was the Boss, this was up to him.  
  
“We’re taking Brother alive, and make him love us.”

 

It was a declaration, and more, a command.  



End file.
